Friday’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado, was a truly tragic event. But out of the grief, stories of heroes and miracles are arising. Here are a few of the most memorable positive stories to come out of that day.

Sacrificing their lives
Many of the victims of the shooting died as heroes, saving the lives of the people they cared about. Matt McQuinn blocked his girlfriend and her older brother to protect them from the bullets. Navy officer John Lariman was killed protecting his girlfriend. Air Force Staff Sergeant Jesse Childress protected the fellow airman sitting next to him. Jonathan Blunk pushed his girlfriend Jansen Young to the ground to keep her safe. 24-year-old Alex Teves died shielding his girlfriend, Amanda Lindgren. “He saved me. He was my angel,” Lindgren told People Magazine.
A new life begins
A heavily pregnant woman, Katie Medley, escaped from the theater. Her husband Caleb was shot and remains in critical condition in a medically induced coma. When he wakes up, however, he’ll have the opportunity to meet his newborn son, Hugo for the first time.

A stroke of luck
In a surprising stroke of good fortune, one of the shooting victims, Petra Anderson, was able to survive likely because of a brain abnormality. Anderson was shot in the head, but a scan revealed that the bullet was routed through a fluid channel in her brain. Anderson hadn’t been aware of the defect, and it had never caused her any problems. Now, it had most likely saved her life. Anderson’s pastor called the strange phenomenon a miracle.

“It’s just like the God I follow to plan the route of a bullet through a brain long before Batman ever rises,” he wrote on his blog.

A visit from Batman
Christian Bale, the star of Batman Rising, made an impromptu trip to Aurora to visit with recovering accident victims. They were thrilled to see Batman himself, live and in person. Check out the photos here.

A memorial scholarship in honor of a rising sports journalist
Jessica Ghawi, who went by Jessica Redfield in her writing, was a hockey fanatic and aspiring sports journalist who was killed in the shooting. Within days of her death, friends, family, and admirers had banded together to create a memorial scholarship in her name to send other sports journalists to school. The fundraising goal was set at $20,000, but support has poured in from around the web and the fund is already up to $28,000, with 119 days to go. You can make a donation through IndieGoGo.